


the biggest, lies

by marginaliana



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Gen, POV Multiple, canonical potential child harm, no actual child harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 02:54:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20959286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/pseuds/marginaliana
Summary: There weren't many things they lied to each other about – well, not manybigthings – but one of them was Warlock.





	the biggest, lies

**Author's Note:**

> Slightly AU timeline where A and C became the Dowlings' nanny and gardener right after Warlock's birth.

There weren't many things Crowley lied to Aziraphale about – well, not many _big_ things – but one of them was Warlock.

Dowling senior had fired him when Warlock was six, saying that the boy was too old to need a nanny. Crowley had considered 'convincing' him otherwise, but the other diplomats had been doing the same, and setting Warlock up for embarrassment among his peers would hardly have served anyone's purpose. So Crowley had packed up his little corner of the servants' quarters, patted Warlock on the shoulder and wished him well, and went off into the sunset. Aziraphale had dutifully gone with him; Crowley rather thought the gardens would be better off.

He'd had a forlorn hope that the decision meant Warlock's parents were taking more of an interest in him, but as a keen student of human nature he'd hung around for a bit anyway, just to make sure.

Things seemed almost promising at first. The following week Dowling senior went to a school football game; Mrs Dowling called Warlock to the chaise where she sat in the evenings and put her arm around his shoulders and asked about his lessons. But Dowling senior grumbled about football not being as good as baseball and was too busy to attend a second game. Mrs. Dowling listened to Warlock's account of it with obvious disinterest. Things deteriorated from there, and soon the only person really in the boy's life was his chauffeur, who was pleasant enough but uninclined to make friends with children.

They had agreed only to watch from a distance, Crowley and Aziraphale. Make sure Warlock survived but intervene only in the case of natural disasters or potentially-maiming accidents. Crowley had fully intended to keep to that agreement… but he'd lived with Warlock's adoring face for six years, and against that even a demon was powerless.

* * *

He stood at the back of the stands throughout the next game, wearing Nanny Ashtoreth with every inch of his body. He spared a little miracle to keep himself cool in the late summer mugginess but other than that he was focused on the game, cheering viciously at Warlock's goals and hissing (under his breath) every time another boy took the ball. When the game was over he snuck down to the sidelines and caught Warlock's eye.

Warlock's face lit up and he opened his mouth to shout, but Crowley put a finger to his lips and Warlock cut himself off with a skill gained through years of playing ‘hide and seek' in Daddy's office. Crowley made his way through the throng of family and friends, nudging himself into being unnoticed until he reached Warlock's side.

"You were brilliant, darling," he said.

"You were watching?"

"'Course I was," said Crowley. "You think I'd miss a chance to see you kick some brat in the shin and get away with it?"

"Pretty good, right?" said Warlock, beaming.

"Wonderful." He tousled Warlock's hair. "You'll be a champion." He didn't specify a champion at _what_ — Warlock's enthusiasm for football was greater than his talent, but he was excellent at kicking people in the shins.

"I'll come again to see you when I can," Crowley said. "But you can't tell anyone about me, not anyone at all. I'm not your nanny anymore and people might think it was… creepy. The sort of thing I told you to stay away from, remember? Strangers."

"But you're not a stranger," Warlock said.

"To your parents I would be. But not to you, darling."

"Yes, Nanny."

"And remember…"

"It's only lying if you get caught," Warlock chanted.

Crowley settled a soft hand on his shoulder. "That's right, my boy. That's exactly right."

* * *

He made the time for every game, after that. Every school sports day, every Christmas pageant, every end of term art exhibition. He had Warlock call him ‘Miss Ash' and told him to pretend that Crowley was a distant cousin, so they no longer had to be quite so careful. Sometimes the Dowlings would actually bother to turn up and Crowley wouldn't have a chance to speak to Warlock directly, but he always made sure that Warlock saw him across the room if nothing else, always gave a nod or a slow smile of approval.

He knew he was breaking his agreement with Aziraphale. This was intervention, pure and simple. Crowley tried to justify it to himself as maintaining both positives and negatives in the boy's life all at once, just alone instead of together. Then he remembered that he was a demon and he wasn't strictly required to justify anything. Still, he couldn't bring himself to tell Aziraphale what he was doing. There were many logical reasons to keep his silence, of course. Even if he didn't know what they were. He could always find some if it became necessary.

* * *

There weren't many things Aziraphale lied to Crowley about – well, not many _big_ things – but one of them was Warlock. He knew Crowley visited at times; there were no good reasons for him to be consistently absent from London every other Sunday and the occasional Tuesday night and the days just before Christmas. There were no other reasons for him to come back with his hair a little longer and more feminine than usual, with glitter on his fingertips and the smell of ginger biscuits lingering on his jacket.

Aziraphale wanted to applaud Crowley for it, wanted to tell him how lovely and sweet and _nice_ it was for him to look after the boy. But Crowley would hate hearing it, as he hated hearing anything good about himself, and more than that it would probably make him stop going out of pure embarrassment. That, in the end, was reason enough for Aziraphale to clamp his mouth down on the words and pretend he didn't know about any of it.

He made his own visits instead, just to make sure they were still balancing each other out. It was easy to become Mr Zita, a substitute janitor at Warlock's school, filling in when someone else was ill or suddenly needed childcare or, in one case, abruptly won a large sum of money in a raffle and quit immediately. There he could wander the halls unmonitored, keeping an eye out for problems.

Over time he found himself making the place better in little ways, though he hadn't meant to. It was natural to brush away the worst bits of cruelty that clung to the walls, to buff the laminate floor tiles until they gleamed with the desire to learn, the desire to teach. Small things, not miracles. Just enough to keep Warlock safe, to give him the best chance to learn about the world. Really, they hardly counted at all. Crowley was probably doing the same, just using demonic methods instead.

He didn't often see Warlock himself, except within the crowds of children, like part of a strange single entity that formed itself in places where bodies congregated. But he knew that Warlock had friends and that he was no meaner than he needed to be and was, in the ways of a child, happy enough.

* * *

When Warlock was a month from eleven, they both stopped visiting – it was simply too painful. Crowley told Warlock he would be living in Australia for a while; Aziraphale simply faded away.

They sat in St. James' Park and didn't tell each other about any of it. Instead they discussed the hellhound. Aziraphale seemed a bit put out that Crowley hadn't mentioned the hellhound before; Crowley wanted to let them be diverted into arguing about it, but when the conversational moment came, he found himself discussing the last thing that needed to be discussed. The thing that he knew he had to mention, despite the fact that he'd been firmly suppressing the thought for eleven years now.

"There must be some way of stopping it," Aziraphale said plaintively.

Crowley took a breath and said it. "If there was no… boy." Something in him screamed at the words. How could he suggest it? Not a child, not his precious boy. "Then the process would stop." Would it be worth it, if they saved the world?

"Yes, but there is a boy," Aziraphale said. "He's over there. Writing a rude word on a description of a dinosaur." Aziraphale couldn't help but notice that Mrs. Dowling had wandered off to take a picture of herself, leaving Warlock, once again, entirely to his own devices.

"There's a boy _now_," Crowley said. He tipped his head back, trying to look casual. As if the idea had just occurred. As if it hadn't been lurking poisonously in the back of his mind for what seemed like forever. "That could change." Warlock would die, yes, but he'd take his place by his Father's side. He'd rule in Hell. Surely he'd be happy there. Surely that would be compensation enough.

Crowley could feel himself shivering, just a little. "Something could happen to him," he continued. He had to make it nonchalant, or else he would shake apart. Aziraphale didn't seem to be understanding Crowley's point, or perhaps he simply didn't want to. He had developed the ability to deploy willful blindness with precision over the centuries, to be so blank that people stopped trying to make him hear uncomfortable things and just went away. Crowley couldn't bear it. "I'm saying you could kill him," he snapped.

Aziraphale _hadn't_ wanted to let himself understand, but now he couldn't avoid it. He looked back at Warlock, whose rude words on the sign had become even ruder. "I've never actually… killed… anything," he said. "I don't think I could."

"Not even to save everything?" Crowley knew that he was asking himself the question as much as he was asking Aziraphale. Could he do it?

Aziraphale knew what Crowley was doing. Trying to balance the way he'd always balanced, trying to walk the fine line of being a demon without being truly horrible. To evade the uncomfortable truths of what he was and what he could do. Crowley loved things, loved them with an intensity that only angels were supposed to be capable of. Crowley loved Warlock. Of course he wouldn't be able to kill the boy himself. He had to suggest it to Aziraphale instead, had to slither out from beneath the responsibility of making the choice. Sometimes Aziraphale admired the way Crowley did this sort of thing. Now it just seemed like cowardice.

"One life against the universe." Crowley's voice cracked. He was a demon, wasn't he? Demons killed people all the time. And worse. Why should this be so difficult? He wouldn't even have to do it himself; Aziraphale could do the dirty work. He was an angel. They killed people all the time, too. More than demons did, really.

Aziraphale couldn't look at Crowley. He couldn't look at Warlock, either. Perhaps Crowley was right. Perhaps this was the only way.

What did that say about Her, if that were true?

He couldn't think it. No, he simply couldn't. "Th— this hellhound," he said. "It'll show up at his birthday party?"

A diversion, and he knew it, and Crowley knew it too. But neither of them had the courage to face the question head on.

* * *

Afterwards, when the world had come to rest in its orbit again, safe and sound and nothing but human, the two of them went back. Without speaking of it, without using his name. They left the Ritz, not quite hand-in-hand but close enough. They walked to the Bentley; Aziraphale reached for the door handle and it moved easily under his palm. He let himself in and settled into the seat.

Crowley folded in beside him and took a breath. It was hard to admit what he wanted, even though they were on their own side now, and he didn't have to pretend not to care. "I should like to—" he began.

"Yes," Aziraphale said. "Let's. Godfathers, you know."

Crowley swallowed. Aziraphale knew him better than anyone, in this world and beyond; he'd been there at Crowley's worst moment (even worse than Armageddon, and that was a high bar), and he was still willing to use that word. _Godfather._ He still thought Crowley was worthy of it. "I'm sure he's fine," Crowley said. "But still."

"Of course."

The Bentley made its way to the Dowling residence with a minimum of vehicular disaster. Crowley pulled up at one side of the enormous gravel drive and got out, flicking his fingers to make the car tidily unnoticeable. He didn't know what to do next.

Should he seek the Dowlings' permission to see Warlock? He'd never bothered with that before, and Armageddon probably hadn't improved them. Perhaps he'd just turn into a snake and taste his way around first.

But he didn't make it that far. The sound of shouting became audible from the left of the house. A moment later Warlock appeared around the corner, jogging slightly and facing back the way he'd come. "And by the way," he called. "You smell like poo!"

A classic, Crowley thought, beaming helplessly. Not particularly original, but it got the job done.

Warlock turned around, grinning fiercely, and then stopped abruptly at the sight of them. "Miss Ash!" he said, anger sliding into delight. "You're back from Australia!"

Crowley hadn't put Nanny Ashtoreth back on yet, but he wasn't surprised that Warlock had recognized him. The boy had spent years in the world of diplomacy and he could hardly have avoided gaining a bit of ability to see things for what they were.

Warlock turned his gaze on Aziraphale. "And Brother Francis. Or Mr Zita, is it now?"

"Drat," Aziraphale said. "I hoped you hadn't seen me."

"You'd have done better without the teeth," Warlock said mercilessly. Crowley stifled a grin.

But then Warlock's tone turned bitter. "Why'd you come now? My parents are home, you know. You've never talked to me when they were around before. Are you here to talk to them?"

"My dear boy," Aziraphale began.

Crowley elbowed him. Of all the things he'd done for Warlock, done to him, or _thought_ of doing to him, the biggest of those had been the lies.

"Only if you want us to," he said. In Warlock's defiant eyes he could see something shining. Nothing angelic, nothing demonic, nothing like the Father they'd once thought he had. Nothing but pure human. And yet the light was there nonetheless, like one of the stars Crowley had made millennia ago, small and bright and beautiful. He ached to think he'd ever considered snuffing it out.

Crowley's feet carried him closer, all by themselves. "We've been watching over you," he said. "Not just because your parents hired us."

Warlock lifted his chin but nodded. "I know."

"And not just because we love you." Somehow it was easy for Crowley to say to Warlock, even though it would have been impossible to say to anyone else.

"I know," Warlock said.

"But we do love you!" Aziraphale burst out, scrambling up beside Crowley until he was almost close enough to pull Warlock into a hug. "Oh, you must know that, dearest, you must—"

"I know," Warlock said, letting himself smile just the faintest bit.

"Do you want to know the truth? It isn't an easy one." Perhaps, Crowley thought, it was unfair to put the question to a boy who was still only eleven. But this was a boy he'd looked after for years, a boy he knew as well as Aziraphale knew _him_. Warlock could hear the truth of what Crowley had asked Aziraphale to do back in St James' Park. Whether he would forgive either of them afterwards was beside the point. He could carry the weight of hearing it.

He would have been, Crowley reflected, a perfect Antichrist. He took a moment to thank someone that things had turned out differently.

"I want to know the truth," Warlock said.

Crowley took a deep breath and told him.


End file.
